2024 a year of travel...

Ayr

In 2024 we have been blessed with the ability to do a fair bit of travelling which has included the help of some generous hosting by friends and family and some careful planning by Pauline. 

Edinburgh 

Glasgow

We started the year in Scotland as usual and then took in...

Paris

Nantes

Honfleur

Rennes

Mont Saint-Michel

Brussels

Antwerp

Tervuren

Toulouse

Perpignan

Collioure

Port Vendres 

Tarragona

We left Tarragona on the 20th and drove to Alicante stayed overnight then parked the car at the airport and flew to Prestwick where Eileen picked us up and brought us full circle back to Ayr.

More planes trains and automobiles...

Back in La Guerche after a day of travelling yesterday - 10 minute walk to the tram from Corstorphine to the airport which is very straightforward and direct. Then a Ryanair flight to Poitiers which was 40 minutes late and one where they made us stand in a packed corridor for 20 minutes before boarding. 

Then we headed to the taxi rank for a taxi to the train station to catch our train to Chatellerault. There were no taxis waiting for the flight's arrival and we found out that in fact there never is! 

A Romanian couple let us know you had to call a cab and even then you had to keep your fingers crossed that they would arrive! They  were kind enough to call for one for us and as we chatted we found out that the lady used to work in the dentists in Ligueil. By the time their taxi arrived another couple  had joined what they thought was a queue - we shared our new found information with them. When our taxi had not arrived after 20 minutes there was talk of us perhaps missing our train but they said they were heading to the train station as well to pick up their car before heading up to Montrichard and if we did miss our train they would take us home, how kind are people? Just as our taxi eventually arrived another couple arrived confused and we managed to get our driver to organise one for them. 

Our friend Dennis picked us up at Chatellerault for the last part of our journey home.   

Trains,planes & automobiles

We are back in Scotland for another sad occasion so yesterday was a day of  driving to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps to catch the train to CDG airport,a flight to Glasgow where we picked up our hirecar to take us to Kilmarnock. Though this time our little Fiat was red...unlike the twin of our last visit. 

You couldn't make it up...

Trains Planes and automobiles...oh and bus too.

We are off to Toronto for two weeks!!

Our big adventure started yesterday morning with our friend Karen giving us a lift to Le Grand Pressigny to catch the bus to Tours. After the bus wound its way around the deviation at Ligieul and back onto the Tours road the lady opposite us,seated by the central door, rushed to  the front of the bus to tell the driver that the door to the luggage hold was flapping open! Only Pauline and I and a young man after us, put luggage there - with the young man closing (or not as it happens) it  Both he and I went out to check our luggage once the bus had pulled in at the side of the road.As I was about to have a look a car pulled in and the driver came out holding one of our bags!!! It must have fallen out as he negotiated one of the roundabouts and bounced in front of him! Now this was our 'carry-on' bag (maybe we should have) which had our passports, train and plane tickets plus the keys to the house!!!!

How lucky were we?,one that the lady saw the door flapping, she was only one of ten of us on the bus and happened to be sitting in the only seat you could have seen it and two, that there was a car behind the bus.We have driven this road many times and been the only vehicle on the road. The bag could have ended in a ditch and we might have had to retrace our journey - doesn't bear thinking about! We obviously thanked the lady but didn't get a chance to thank the driver THANK YOU wherever you are. The rest of the trip should be straightforward after this.

Fortune favours the brave...or should that read mad.

Left St.Chamond at 6.00 am after checking traffic was moving on autoroute and to avoid any congestion at Saint Etienne. Good plan as sailed past there and south of Lyon with only a couple of winter flourishes. It was only when we hit the high ground in the Auvergne on the way to Thiers that the winter weather kicked in with a vengeance...at one stage we were down to 30km/hr on a white road with no idea of lanes,with snow banked up on both sides, in the dark, alone with only a blizzard for company...was genuinely scared  though couldn't let Pauline know...she was nervously humming next to me in a non- too assuringly way. I actually got to the point where I thought I could not continue when we suddenly could see the road and eventually caught up with four other brave souls who were as mad as we were and stuck tight to them ...at least we were not alone! As dawn broke we all eventually caught up with a snow plough the other side of Thiers that allowed us and others we had caught up with to continue our journey in what were now great conditions to what we had just experienced..

It was pretty much plain sailing after that with the weather improving the further north we got...however when we did hit some heavy snow at Chatereaux  it was like 'bring it on' after what we had experienced! Arriving home in Barrou at 11.30 was a great feeling as we genuinely thought at one point that we might never make it!

More of what came before tomorrow.